Banging on about things

In opposition, David Cameron warned his party against "banging on" about Europe but they didn't listen. Maybe they couldn't hear him over the sound of banging.

Banging on, despite the demotic appellation, is an ancient art formally known as prating, passed down by generations of pub bores. It consists of two elements – repetition and irrelevance. You have to talk incessantly about something in which other people aren't interested and not listen to their response. Otherwise, it is mere conversation. It is important not to notice that your audience heard you the first time. To know you are being tedious and to carry on regardless is provocation, which is a different art. Proper banging on must be sincerely obtuse.

There is a correct movement of the eyes when banging on, which is the swivel (although boggle-eyed ranting is permitted). The complexion should be indistinguishable from the claret that has been drunk at lunch to lubricate the banging. The chin or lips should be lightly flecked with spittle. Foaming at the mouth is practised by a schismatic sect of bangers on, generally known as Ukip.

Cheating at capitalism

So accustomed is modern society to the widespread practice of capitalism that some are inclined to think it has no rules; that the realm of economic activity is akin to a jungle where only the strongest survive. (Lions don't submit themselves to the authority of some enfeebled gazelle-market regulator.)

In fact, capitalism does have rules but one of them is that the richer you get, the easier it is to cheat. Cheating can either be done on your own or as a team. A popular solo method is to avoid paying taxes by pretending that your profits are made in some place where the government can't see them. This is easiest for people who practise capitalism on the internet. It is especially easy for Google because the only way anyone can find anything on the internet is by googling it. The company can rig its algorithms to trick a taxman who types in "where do you make your profits?" and hits "I feel lucky".

Team cheating involves agreeing with your competitors to keep prices high. Big energy companies are sometimes accused of doing this but no one can say for sure that they do. That's because another rule of capitalism is that anyone who is rich enough to cheat at it can afford a lawyer to stop people calling them cheats.

Inheriting money does not necessarily count as cheating at capitalism but it is prudent for those born into wealth not to claim to be "in it together" with anyone else.

Keeping secrets

A new book claims to reveal the original recipe for Coca-Cola. This is only a big deal because Coke has been so uptight about not sharing the formula, thus breaking the first rule of keeping a secret, which is to act cool. Looking really secretive is the worst way to keep a secret because it increases the incentive for other people to try to find out what you know.

The second rule is that the only true secret is something you know about yourself. You can't know something entirely secret about someone else because they know it too, which makes two of you, and that's the beginning of the end of secrecy. In any case, someone probably told you the secret, which means the chances are they've blabbed all over the place. Anyone who asks: "Can you keep a secret?" is clearly a poor judge of secret-keeping capability because he or she is obviously on the verge of breaching a confidence.

Period drama in film and television

Apply the Gatsby rule: success as drama is in inverse proportion to lavishness of costumes.

Jail time done by famous middle-class people

A prison sentence, once served, can be formally reclassified as an "ordeal" by writing a book about it.